Concept

How to spell concept

7 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce concept

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does concept mean?

1. nounAn abstract idea or general notion formed in the mind.

Concept in a sentence

• The design team pitched a fresh concept for the new product.

• She struggled to explain the concept of compound interest to the class.

Where does concept come from?

Language of origin: Latin

Concept comes from the Latin conceptum, meaning 'something conceived or grasped', which is the past participle of concipere, 'to take in' or 'to conceive'. That verb was built from the prefix con-, meaning 'together', and capere, the Latin verb 'to take' or 'to seize', so the literal sense was of the mind taking hold of an idea. English adopted it in the early 1500s, around the same period as the closely related 'conceive' and 'conception', which trace back to the very same capere root. The same Latin verb capere also gave us words like 'capture', 'receive', and 'accept', all of which carry a buried sense of taking or grasping. The spelling preserves the cept element rather than a phonetic 'sept', which is the small trap, and the double c sound (k then s) is what trips some writers.

How the word is built

• con- (together)
• cept (from capere: to take, grasp); an idea grasped together in the mind